MJ - Social Media and the News Lesson

Social media forums now allow us the opportunity as citizens to join in on the discussion on current issues; however, these discussions can be highly opinionated and biased. Social media outlets allow comments where other news outlets do not. It also allows the reader to interact with a story instead of just absorbing the words on the screen.

We also live in a world that functions in real-time. While social media allows for the information to be posted quickly, the speed in which a story is posted could affect its accuracy. Since social media allows for anyone to post, the amount of information available can be difficult for the consumer to go through and determine what is credible and what is not. The use of social media has allowed for information to be published that may not have been reported otherwise.

We have become citizen journalists. As citizens became journalists, the practice of verifying each and every fact that goes online has lost its importance. With all this information presented, it leads us to question the credibility of the information and news presented to us by the media. The information that comes from such different sources can be hard to monitor the truthfulness and credibility. As a result, this can lead to consumers taking this information as the truth and can lead to miscommunication of the truth. So the question you could ask yourself, is it more important to get the news in real time even if the facts aren't yet confirmed?

With the creation of social media, we now have the opportunity to create ideas and broadcast them to others. This, in turn, has changed how journalists approach the news. It was journalists who decided what was newsworthy. In fact, the alert of breaking news still captivates us; however, through Twitter and other social media outlets, breaking news often comes from people just like you and their smart phone as they hit record in order to get the exclusive. One could say that social media breaks the news and that TV covers it.

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